Tom Brady may have a tough time winning over Fox viewers, but he will

It’s an odd thing for Brady to have to overcome — his own dominance as a player. But it’s real. He won so much as a player that, at least initially, he’s going to have a hard time winning over fans (excluding the Patriots and Buccaneers fan bases) who spent two decades rooting against him, with little to no satisfaction to show for it.

But Brady can win them over, and I think he will. Eventually. Maybe even sometime this season. How?

Self-deprecation is crucial. He needs to be willing to be the butt of the joke, and it needs to be genuine — false modesty from the rich, famous, and attractive fools no one.

I think Brady knows this — it’s partially how he remained beloved by teammates even as he attained an unfathomable level of fame. If he can come across as normal and authentically good-natured, those who want to loathe him are going to be awfully confused when they catch themselves enjoying listening to him.

The bigger piece, of course, is the approach he takes as an analyst. He cannot enter the booth like Tony Romo in 2017; that level of enthusiasm from Brady would seem insincere. His strength will be his depth of knowledge — or as he put it deep into his playing career, he has “all the answers to the test.”

Nothing he sees from the broadcast booth will perplex him. If he can explain what he sees concisely and with true candor — which he has done on podcasts and other media appearances — his insights will be irresistible. (Much in the same way that Bill Belichick’s have been during his myriad media gigs.)

Back in February, I wrote that if Brady “commits to excelling at broadcasting, he will.”

Well, he sure committed.

I was told last December that Brady was already practicing calling full games. Front Office Sports reported this past week that he’s actually called 17 practice games (old games on tape) with his broadcast partner, excellent play-by-play announcer Kevin Burkhardt.

They also have called two full preseason games, part of another, and Brady was part of the UFL championship game broadcast.

That’s the Brady we know, isn’t it? In preparation for his first season in the booth, he’s already gone through an entire practice season. The parallel with the beginning of his playing career isn’t lost here.

Come Sunday at 4:25 p.m., we’ll get our first chance to find out what he learned from all of that practice and preparation, and get our first hints at what kind of broadcaster he will be.

The hunch here is that he’s going to be good now, if maybe a little awkward, and then much better at the end of the season.

The bonus is this amusing part: It’s going to be fun watching fans in other markets begrudgingly acknowledge that their old nemesis and conqueror is good company as a broadcaster, all these years after that first daydream of never hearing from Tom Brady again.

Behind-the-scenes shakeup

The morning-drive program on 98.5 The Sports Hub underwent a major change at the end of last year when Rob “Hardy” Poole joined Fred Toucher as co-host after Rich Shertenlieb’s departure.

Wednesday night, the “Toucher and Hardy” show underwent another shakeup, this time behind the scenes, with two longtime producers departing and a familiar personality to Boston radio listeners shifting into the role.

Sports Hub program director Rick Radzik confirmed that Adam Chapman, known as Adam 12, is the new executive producer of “Toucher and Hardy.” He will also continue to program what remains of fellow Beasley Media-owned station Rock 92.9, which switched to Bloomberg Radio on that signal but still can be heard on 92.9 HD2, 106.1 FM, WRCA-AM 1330, and the Rock 92.9 app.

Adam 12′s last day as a host on 92.9 was Sept. 3. Moving him to the executive producer’s role on “Toucher and Hardy” — a show on which he has been a guest — was a logical fit since Beasley was already paying him and he is good friends with Toucher and Hardy.

The executive producer position opened up when Dan O’Brien was laid off Wednesday night in a cost-cutting measure, which would have allowed for a seamless addition of Adam 12.

The plan, according to multiple sources with knowledge of the situation, was for Mike Lockhart — who had been with the show since January 2009, when it was still at WBCN — to remain as a producer and work with Adam 12.

Lockhart had asked for a raise after Shertenlieb left, and had been told that he’d eventually take over as lead producer. He was blindsided Thursday when he was told of the plan with Adam 12. He was offered a raise by Beasley, but it was a fraction of what he had asked for late last year.

So feeling misled and underappreciated — Beasley had laid him off in October 2022 before bringing him back later in the month after Shertenlieb offered to pay his salary — he decided this was the time to move on.